The Humming Cloud, 60th Day of Spring, 526 M.E. (Aldebaran): For the second night in a row, I was awakened by the sound of thunder and rain. I'm glad to have sacrificed some sleep to get some much-needed precip. An inch fell yesterday, on what you would call the 29th of April, bringing the month-to-date rainfall up to to 1¾ inches. That's well below the 3⅔-inch norm for April, but we'll take whatever we can get. We're still six inches below normal for the year.

The Supreme Court's decision yesterday eviscerating what's left of the Voting Rights Act has many people asking if the United States is a racist country. That's a difficult question. Is every citizen a racist? No, of course not. Are the majority of citizens racist? Harder to answer, but I like to believe "no." 

Let's apply Ibram X. Kendi's test to determine the nation's racism. Setting aside the question of personal values and intentions, are the outcomes of the United States' actions and policies  disproportionately harmful to racial minorities or other ethnic groups?

The so-called "Kavanaugh rule," a recent Supreme Court decision that says police and immigration agents can use skin color to identify suspects for deportation and other actions, is inherently and irreducibly racist. The rule is now the law of the land, and I think most members of the Latino and Hispanic communities would say they frequently experience some form or another of racism, while the immigrant portion of that community lives with fear and anxiety almost beyond comprehension.

The African-American community regularly experiences discrimination, suffers economic inequality more acutely, and are disproportionately subject to police harassment and intimidation. Although Justice Alito and other members of the Court apparently believe that racism is a thing of the past, it's the lived experience of a great many Black Americans.

Internationally, the whole world experiences the effects of discriminatory polices of the United States. The dismantling of USAID affects African countries far more than any others. Although the Stable Genius has threatened to take Greenland away from Denmark "by any means necessary" and has spoken disparagingly about NATO, the actual counties he's used the military against include Venezuela (Hispanic), Nigeria (Black), and Iran (Islamic). I can't think of any military action we've taken yet this century against a country with a predominantly White population. 

The United States is a country founded on the twin pillars of enslavement of Africans and the genocide of its indigenous population. For 250 years, it has legislated and enshrined a long series of policies that serve the interests of the majority white (and male) population over those of others and often at the expense of those others. Any countermeasures intended to level the playing field have been called "socialism" (as if that were a bad thing) or worse, and are being systematically removed by a conspicuously Caucasian Executive Branch and judiciary. 

So even if all or even most of its citizens aren't motivated by racism, it's hard to deny that the outcomes of its laws, policies, and actions are skewed against certain racial groups, and by the measure, yes, the USA is a racist nation.

 

The Crimson Delight, 59th Day of Spring, 526 M.E. (Helios): In a landmark decision today, the US Supreme Court effectively gutted a major section of the Voting Rights Act, ruling that Louisiana will have to redraw its congressional map. In a 6-3 decision along partisan lines, the court rendered ineffective Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the last remaining powerful provision of the 1965 civil rights law that prevents racial discrimination in voting. Section 2 has long been used to ensure minority voters are treated fairly in redistricting.

“Allowing race to play any part in government decision-making represents a departure from the constitutional rule that applies in almost every other context,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the majority. “Compliance with Section 2 thus could not justify the state’s use of race-based redistricting here. The state’s attempt to satisfy the middle district’s ruling, although understandable, was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.”

To be sure, the Civil Rights Act, including Section 2, was not written to give minority voters a disproportionately greater advantage at the polls. It was designed to keep majority voters from denying a proportionate share of votes to minority communities. The Court is looking through the wrong end of the telescope. The court’s decision gives lawmakers permission to draw districting plans that further increase the influence of White majority voters, an unconstitutional use of race in government decision making.  

Within hours of the court’s ruling, Florida’s legislature already approved a new Republican-friendly map that could give Republicans up to four additional seats, and state officials across the South have indicated that they also intend to pursue changes to their maps that could take effect in time for November's elections.

The Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965 and resulted in a number of districts, particularly in the South, where nonwhite voters make up the majority, allowing them to elect the candidates of their choice. But Justice Alito argued that “vast social change” in the South and elsewhere made such considerations no longer necessary. Discrimination that occurred years or decades ago, he wrote for the majority, as well as certain “present-day disparities,” are “entitled to much less weight” now.

"Racism is over." That may be the privileged view of a wealthy, entitled white jurist in D.C., but does not reflect the lived experiences of other people’s lives in 2026. Racially polarized voting is still a reality in the South, as is the racial wealth gap, the educational achievement gap, and health outcome gap. Discrimination claims are still rampant in employment.

As Ibram X. Kendi summarized it, "The Court of White Supremacy reaffirmed the myth that intent—not outcome—determines if a policy is racist." The history of racism teaches us that policies should be defined as racist based on their outcome. Intent can be hidden - lawmakers can hide their intent to suppress Black political power when they try to eliminate majority Black districts. An unjust outcome can’t be hidden.

SCOTUS is now a sick and corrupt institution and there's no ready remedy. At the very least, a  progressive and activist POTUS is needed to expand the court with new appointees to overcome the racist, bigoted, and tragically out-of-touch influences of Alito, Clarence, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, et al.

 

The Taught Lists, 58th Day of Spring, 526 M.E. (Electra): I woke up to the sound of thunder around 6:00 am this morning, hopeful that some rain may have finally come to end this extreme drought here in Georgia. But apparently, the weather was just dry heaving, as no rain accompanied the thunder. All sound and fury, but no precip.

Republicans are saying that since a gunman had entered a hotel at which the president was speaking last Saturday and fired shots in the next room, taxpayers should give the Stable Genius $400 million to construct a ballroom at the White House. Never mind that the gunman never made it through security - the system worked - and there were still like 100 armed Secret Service agents between the gunman and the president when the shooter was apprehended. Never mind that the Stable Genius claimed the ballroom will be paid for by private donations when he had the East Wing of the White House demolished to make space for his ballroom.

Presidential staff and White House correspondents are all over the news talking about how traumatic it was for them to hear gunfire in the next room. Welcome to America - if you haven't heard gunfire by now, you should probably have your hearing checked. But instead of a ballroom, may I suggest the president and his staff do what they insist millions of schoolchildren have to do, and just duck beneath their desks until the shooting stops? If you're so shook hearing gunshots in a hotel, imagine what it's like for an eight-year-old under a desk at school seeing their dead classmates on the floor.

At least two-thirds of Americans agree with me that this country is on the wrong track, with some polls showing as many as 80% of Americans, particularly Gen Z adults, believe we're on the wrong track. A significant number of Americans view the economy negatively, with polls showing that 47% rate the economy as "poor" and three quarters believing economic conditions are worsening, with high fuel prices influencing their views. According to AAA, the average cost for a gallon of regular gasoline just hit $4.18, the highest price since April 2022, shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine. 

Public trust in government has been low for decades, and a Pew Research poll found that a mere 2% of Americans say they trust the government to do what is right “just about always,” while 15% trust it “most of the time.” The current measures are among the lowest in the nearly seven decades of polling, and are lower than last year (22%). Only about 38% of Americans say patriotism is "very important" to them, down from 70% in 2000, and half of all adults between the ages of 18 and 29 say they are not very or not at all patriotic.

Congressional polarization has reached its highest point since Reconstruction, and threats of violence against politicians have surged. Some draw parallels between the United States and Weimer Germany, and others to the Soviet Union in its final years - a brittle gerontocracy rotting from within - while some argue that the country is on the brink of a civil war.

But sure, let's build the president a gauche, $400-million, gold-plated ballroom, because ya gotta dance, right?

 

The Ariven Power, 57th Day of Spring, 526 M.E. (Deneb): Today is a walking day, and I took it leisurely with a 5.7-mile Monroe. Thoughts while walking today:

• Can there be matter without energy? Or energy without matter? Are they interdependent entities or two expressions of the same thing?


• I always understood E = mc² as describing the energy that can be derived from matter, like, say, in an atomic bomb or a nuclear reactor, but all equations are basically two-way streets so it also describes how matter can arise from energy. 


• Matter arising from energy is a way of describing the universe turning itself inside out from nothing to become something. The physical universe arose from the limitless energy of pure Potential to form galaxies, quarks, planets, rhinoceri, humans, and today's Monroe.


• To be clear, the limitless energy of pure Potential is not the same thing as "potential energy" as commonly used in non-quantum physics. Lower-case p potential energy requires matter to manifest; upper case P Potential exists prior to and independent of matter.

I also thought about the weather, music, sex, and food, specifically: 

• Weather: Nice today


• Music: Linda Ronstadt's Blue Bayou is basically the same melody as Roy Orbison's Crying, with only minor compositional changes to fit the different lyrics, but no one ever suggested copyright infringement and no one ever should. It's okay to recycle a good melody.


• Sex: A woman wearing tight leggings passed me on the Beltline trail. What would it take, what would I have to do or say, for her to let me hold and spread her buttocks apart? What would that be like, feel like, smell like? 


• Food: The smoothie I made for lunch today is holding me over quite nicely this afternoon. 

How was your day?

Day of Vestiges, 56th of Spring 526 M.E. (Castor):  A man in Washington D.C. fired a gun at the White House correspondents' dinner in the vicinity of numerous journalists, who got a first-hand taste of the terror schoolchildren and others across America have been experiencing on a daily basis for years. Watching the Sunday morning news shows, you'd think the journalists were only just now realizing that the proliferation of handguns has made America a dangerous place.   

Speaking of danger, the two wildfires in South Georgia have now destroyed more than 120 homes and continue to threaten property and lives.  The fires are a result of a combination of extreme drought, gusty winds, and dead trees still littering forests after being toppled by Hurricane Helene in 2024.

The Highway 82 fire has been burning since Monday and has destroyed at least 87 homes. The fire started when a foil balloon hit a power line, creating an electrical arc that ignited combustible material on the ground. The fire now covers more than 14.8 square miles and it is only about 10% contained.

The Pineland Road fire near the Florida state line has burned more than 46.9 square miles and destroyed at least 35 homes. Started by sparks from a welding operation, that wildfire was also about 10% contained as of yesterday.

An unusually large number of wildfires are burning this spring all across the south-eastern U.S.  Firefighters have been battling more than 150 other wildfires in Georgia and Florida that have sent smoky haze into places far from the flames, triggering air quality warnings for some cities.

Warming temperatures and heat stress, among other issues associated with climate change, can affect human hormones and fertility. Research published in the journal Emerging Contaminants found that the impacts of climate change, coupled with simultaneous exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals commonly found in plastic, likely generates a synergistic effect that increases reproductive harm and may contribute to the global drop in fertility.

Sperm levels among men in western countries has decreased by more than 50% over four decades. Human fertility has been diminishing at a similar rate as the world approaches a low-fertility future, with more than three quarters of countries falling below replacement rates by 2050. 

Endocrine-disrupting chemicals and substances, including microplastics, bisphenol, phthalates, and PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances), cause a range of reproductive issues. Phthalates have been linked to reduced sperm counts in humans and PFAS are thought to impact sperm quality. Both are linked to hormone disruption and are commonly found in consumer goods.

However, ICE is planning a detention facility (i.e., concentration camp) for children and families on the former England Air Force Base in Alexandria, Louisiana. Groundwater testing at former firefighting training areas there have found PFAS at levels as high as 41,000,000 parts per trillion (ppt), vastly higher than the federal drinking-water limits of 4 to 10 ppt.  Military bases are commonly contaminated with PFAS, but England’s groundwater had the highest levels ever recorded, making it among the most PFAS-contaminated sites in the US. Groundwater was also contaminated by the carcinogen trichloroethylene (TCE) and other volatile organic compounds (VOCs).    

Groundwater is not used as a drinking-water source at the base, but exposure to PFAS in the shallow groundwater can still occur at springs and seeps and during flood events. Also, the contaminants can spread to soil, affecting children playing outdoors and anyone inhaling dust. Further, the contaminants, particularly TCE and other VOCs, can vaporize and mix with air, affecting anyone and anything that breathes. 

In happier news, a big-game hunter from California was trampled to death last week by an elephant in central Africa.

 

Cardhouse of the Awaited, 55th Day of Spring, 526 M.E. (Betelgeuse): Today, the I Ching gave me Ming Yi (Eclipsing the Light), Hexagram 36. Earth above, fire below. 

Some scholars suggest that the words Ming Yi might once have been the name for a bird. The moving line, line six, reads, "Its broken wing mended, the pheasant is released to its fate. Realizing that darkness co-exists with the light in its own heart, it transcends the bonds of good and evil, and freely roams the heights of Heaven and the depths of Hell."

These times call for a saintly effort to turn the other cheek, the oracle advises. Although you've been deliberately injured, going blow for blow will only escalate this war. Abstain from vengeance. Show all watching that you are above it. Sidestep your aggressors' headlong charge, giving them the opportunity to fall on their face.

Good advice, although I can't really think of an aggressor that I need to sidestep right now. The Stable Genius? These modern times? As I sit in this pile of bricks on a hill with tons of lumber towering over my head in the form of trees, my personal Sword of Damocles, my greatest adversary is probably extreme climate, but how do you sidestep the weather? 

The fire below: the Pineland Road wildfire down in South Georgia now covers around 32,000 acres and is still only about 10% contained. The Highway 82 wildfire and has fallen from 15% contained to only 10% contained, and has nearly doubled in size, growing to about 9,500 acres. The wind is currently pushing the smoke from the fires toward the northeast.  A cold front moving in across the state brings a slight chance of rain but will also a cause a shift in wind direction, with the wind coming out of the west tomorrow. 

The ground outside is wet right now from some trace of rain that must have fallen earlier today, although I missed it. Right now, it's overcast and cool (61°) outside, at least with regard to yesterday (83°). It's a walking day, but I don't think I'll get my steps in as the weather doesn't look reliably dry enough. Would that be sidestepping the weather?

 

Day of the High Road, 54th of Spring, 526 M.E. (Aldebaran):  The latest figures indicate that 71% of Georgia is currently under extreme drought. Only 9.87 inches of rain have fallen on Atlanta since the beginning of the year, down from the normal value of 16.76 for this time of year. Worse, only 4.16 inches of that rain have fallen since March 1, and 0.13 since April 1. It's like someone turned the spigot off.

Meanwhile, wildfires are sweeping across parts of Georgia and have burned tens of thousands of acres so far while destroying 87 homes. In South Georgia, the Pineland Road fire has burned over 29,600 acres and is only 10% contained and the Highway 82 fire is only 15% contained with over 4,438 acres burned. Meanwhile, crews were working last night to contain an active wildfire in West Georgia and firefighters in North Georgia were trying to contain a wildfire that started earlier in the day near homes close to Lake Allatoona. In all, the Georgia Forestry Commission says it responded to 34 new wildfires across the state on Wednesday, although the biggest concerns remain the ongoing wildfires in South Georgia.

With ongoing drought conditions and no significant rainfall in sight, wildfire concerns remain elevated across the state. Morning showers are currently forecast for Tuesday and Thursday of next week, with scattered thundershowers forecast for Wednesday and Friday.  The rain may dowse the wildfires, but we'll need a lot more than that to make up the deficit from the drought. 

The 2026 super El Niño may come to our rescue, at least with regard to the drought, although it will probably bring its own set of crises.  The transition to a super El Niño could potentially bring more rapid temperature variations, higher-than-normal humidity, and a reduced risk of widespread summer drought. Although we haven't seen it so far, super El Niño typically brings cooler, wetter conditions in the spring. El Niño also increases wind shear across the Atlantic, which can suppress hurricane formation, suggesting a lower likelihood of a hyperactive season. The super El Niño is expected to bring a wetter, stormier, and potentially even colder winter to Georgia, with an increased risk of heavy rain, localized flooding, and high-impact weather, driven by a stronger subtropical jet stream steering rain-producing systems over the Southeast.

 

Day of the Field, 53rd of Spring, 525 M.E. (Helios): I walked an 8.3-mile Van Buren this afternoon in 80°, sunny weather. On sunny days, people generally report feeling optimistic and positive about their lives more frequently than when asked the same question on rainy or gloomy days. 

Not to deliberately buck that trend with sad news, but scientists are warning the AMOC, a major Atlantic current that helps regulate climate, may be closer to failure than expected. If it goes, it'll mean harsher weather, sea-level rise, food stress, and wider instability. You're not hearing more about it because governments and the wealthy keep minimizing long-term risks to protect short term interests.

As The Guardian explains it, the poor pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the very rich pay lawyers, and the ultra-rich pay politicians. The more money billionaires accumulate, the greater their control of the political system, which means they pay less tax, which means they accumulate more, which means their control intensifies. They reshape the world to suit their demands. 

One of the symptoms of the pathology known as “billionaire brain” is an inability to see beyond their own short-term gain. They would sack the planet for a few more dollars on the pointless mountain of wealth they've accumulated. 

The impending collapse of the AMOC is arguably the biggest news of the year, perhaps of the century. But because billionaires own most of the media, most people never heard it. We might find ourselves suffering a civilization-ending catastrophe before we even learn that such a thing was possible.

 

Day of the Frontier, 52nd of Spring, 526 M.E. (Electra): On Earth Day, it's worth remembering that we do not stand apart from the world we inhabit. We don't live on the Earth, we are the Earth itself. We're just some of the planet's many atoms and molecules rearranged in a different system than the atoms and molecules of trees and grasses, mountains and rivers, oceans and continents. Every atom in your body came from some other part of the Earth - dust from dust, and to dust, etc.  

We're all part of an intricate global web of interdependence in which the well-being of each being is bound up with the well-being of all. A cosmic web, if he look at it from a higher level of perspective. 

To care for the earth is to express wisdom. To protect what is fragile is to embody compassion. To live simply and responsibly is a form of awakened action.

The Listening Path, 51st Day of Spring, 526 M.E. (Deneb): One of the Stable Genius' favorite sayings, which he falsely claims to be from Abraham Lincoln, is “A friend is one who has the same enemies as you have.”  

The Stable Genius' problem, however, is that his friendship is little better than his animosity. Even when it is obviously in his own interest to help those who are loyal and useful, to build alliances with other nations, or to earn the trust of the voters, he cannot be relied upon to do so.

As the war in Iran enters its eighth week, the Stable Genius' declarations have grown increasingly deranged, seesawing between declarations of violence and peace, between hellfire and ceasefire, between civilizational destruction and international comity, a manic approach to negotiating that has been euphemistically described in the press as “mixed messages.” It's time to set the euphemisms aside and recognize that the president is not simply feigning madness.

His apologists and sycophants like to say that in his chaotic mind lurks the "Madman Theory” - a term coined by Richard Nixon to describe “a belief that acting crazy is a rational strategy.” However, far from a performance designed to forward American interests, never mind prevent an expensive and unpopular war, the Stable Genius' homicidal hysteria appears to be genuinely psychotic, both to voters and to America’s allies. 

His erratic behavior does not indicate a mere "high capacity for irrationality.” He is actually and wildly irrational. His behavior only makes sense if one assumes his own voters and his potential international allies are also legitimate targets of his the mad threats, if they too are to be terrorized by the specter of the deranged emperor. 

The Stable Genius’ madman act has a logic only if the president really sees both voters and allies as enemies to be intimidated.

 

The Whispering Legions, 50th Day of Spring, 526 M.E.(Castor):  Four years ago, I wrote that I don’t like the state of this world and can barely even recognize my own country. Since then, things have only gotten worse.

Climate change is ravaging the planet as levels of greenhouse gases continue to rise. The oceans, choked with plastic, are dying and we're well into the 6th Extinction. Authoritarianism and outright fascism are on the rise all over the world. And we’re closer to nuclear war than we’ve been at any time since the Cold War years of the 60s and 70s.

Domestically, half my fellow citizens, preoccupied by ludicrous claims and fictional scenarios, are accepting of the most outlandish conspiracy theories imaginable and rejecting the very principles of democracy on which this country was founded. Stupidity and ignorance are no longer barriers to holding political office, and some politicians even seem to treat them as assets to be proudly displayed. Racism, antisemitism, homophobia, islamophobia, sexism, and any other form of hatred or intolerance you can imagine are present in virtually all aspects of our lives. White Christian Nationalism seems to be the platform of at least one major political party, and cruelty their default position. And economic inequality is at an all-time high, with a small sub-percentage of the people controlling the vast majority of the wealth. It’s as if we’re teetering between “Brave New World” and “Idiocracy.” 

I’d leave the U.S., but in all honesty there seems to be nowhere that’s not infected with these modern illnesses. Frying pan to the fire in many cases. 

Life’s not all grim and there are small oases of peace, joy, and happiness out there. But they’re like small distractions from the bigger crises - “Here, look at this funny meme," while the house is burning down. 

Four years ago, I did not like the times and had great trepidation about what things would be like after the upcoming election, whichever party prevailed. Same situation today.

Day of the Overseer, 49th of Spring, 526 M.E. (Betelgeuse): Yes, this blog uses AI-generated imagery for its pictures and has for several years now. I like it, and at least for me it solves the ethical problem of appropriation of other people's artwork. If your argument is that AI is stealing the work of others, you need to educate yourself on how generative AI actually works. 

However, the writing here is 100% human generated, assuming as I do that I'm a human. How would I know, though? Does merely believing I'm human make me one? But that's a sidetrack I don't feel like following today. 

Just for laughs, just to see what happens, I asked ChatGPT to write a post for this blog. Taking the title of this blog, here's what it came up with:

Some of the most powerful transformations happen when like meets like. In a world obsessed with differences, we often overlook the quiet, almost invisible ways similarity creates change: ideas blending into new perspectives, emotions finding resonance in others, communities forming through shared experience. Just as water seamlessly merges with itself, dissolving boundaries without resistance, we too have the capacity to connect, adapt, and evolve when we recognize what we have in common. Maybe the real lesson isn’t about chemistry at all, but about how fluid life becomes when we stop trying to stay separate.

If a person had written that, I might think they were trying a little too hard to sound "deep" or were virtue-signaling a tad too much, but otherwise say a job well done. Considering how little it had to go on, just the prompt "blog post for Water Dissolves Water," it's actually not a bad attempt at all. I'm pretty sure most people couldn't do better given that small bit of input and only one minute to write a paragraph.

I'm old. My formative years were in the 1960s and 1970s. I grew up pre-internet, and computers were things that filled rooms in places like IBM headquarters and had spinning reels of magnetic tape. Now, I see self-driving Waymo cars on the street, phones have become indispensable pocket computers with all the world's information at my fingertips, and artificial intelligence can create images and write essays as good or better than I can. I didn't really think that I'd live long enough to see science fiction become reality.

In any case, I'm not turning this blog over to Sam Altman. AI hasn't and won't start writing these posts. Even if you can convince me it can do that better than me, I still need something to do, some outlet to directly express myself, and I'm not about to start outsourcing myself. 

Even if I am fairly impressed by that paragraph above.

 

The Inlet, The Reddening, 48th Day of Spring, 526 M.E. (Aldebaran) - I don't know why it happened, but when I turned my television on yesterday morning, it was tuned to the Fox News channel. 

I don't have my television set to a default station, so whenever I turn it on, it airs the last channel I was watching. Yesterday morning, the appearance of the Fox News channel means that I must have been watching that cesspool of misinformation last thing the night before. But I have no memory of watching Fox News that night and can't for the life of me imagine why I would have turned to it before bed. 

But regardless, the first thing I saw was two Fox hosts smugly announcing that the Strait of Hormuz was once again open and the inflated oil prices were rapidly dropping, and that the Stable Genius' prediction that it would reopen "naturally" and prices would soon return to normal have been proven true. "You see?," they were saying, the war was worth it, the ayatollah has been killed, and there was only minor and temporary disruption to the stock market and the economy.

Setting aside the morality or the consequences of assassinating the leader of another nation, no matter how despicable, the quick drop of the price per barrel of oil will not immediately be realized at the pump. Those prices, it's been said, tend to take the elevator to the top and the stairs coming down. But what really annoyed me in my 30 seconds of watching Fox News before I switched to another channel was the hosts' smug conclusion that the Stable Genius had been proven correct and had been right all along.

The unfortunate side effect of their smugness was that I wound up hoping the reopening wouldn't last and the Stable Genius would be proven wrong. I was cheering against my own and the world's well being. A closed Strait and skyrocketing oil prices puts not only my own retirement in peril, but negatively affects the entire world economy. Stable Genius Derangement Syndrome: my distaste for our so-called "president" has me cheering against my own economic interest. Ironically, my case of Derangement Syndrome came not because of the left's bashing of the President but was due to his media cheerleader's celebration.  

No Fox News this morning, thankfully, and no television, either, but I saw online that Iran has re-closed the Strait. This should be considered bad news, but my first reaction was, "Hah! Proves the Stable Genius was wrong!," not "Shit! Oil prices may never come back down again."

To be clear, I had let myself fall into Fox News' framing of the volatile and complicated situation in the Middle East. Before the Stable Genius decided to kill the ayatollah and bomb Iran, the Strait was open and had been open for decades. The price of oil fluctuated based on market factors of supply and demand, not the holding hostage of international waterways. But after a month of carnage, chaos, and disruption at the sole and inscrutable whims of the Stable Genius, the Strait is closed and the price of oil is stratospheric. 

The Stable Genius didn't re-open the Strait - which, remember, was open before his reckless adventures - but Iran did, and the reopening of the Strait is no "victory" for the U.S. or for the Stable Genius. At best, it merely puts a closing parenthesis on the damage and cost of the stupid war, and is no cause for celebration. No matter what the smirking white boys and their bleached blond cohosts on Fox News say.

Sixth Ocean, 47th Day of Spring, 526 M.E. (Helios): The critical Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) system appears significantly more likely to collapse than previously thought after new research found that climate models predicting the greatest rate of slowdown are the most realistic. A collapse would have catastrophic consequences for Europe, Africa and the Americas.

AMOC is a major part of the global climate system and brings sun-warmed tropical water to Europe and the Arctic, where it cools and sinks to form a deep return current. A collapse would shift the tropical rainfall belt on which many millions of people rely to grow their food, plunge western Europe into extreme cold winters and summer droughts, disrupt monsoons in Africa and Asia, and add 50-100 cm to the already rising sea levels around the Atlantic. The system has collapsed in Earth’s past, and it's now at its weakest in the last 1,600 years as a result of climate change.  

AMOC collapse could also trigger the release of as much as 640 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide from deep ocean water near Antarctica, heating the planet by an additional 0.2° C. 

The AMOC is slowing because air temperatures are rising rapidly in the Arctic because of global warming and the ocean cools more slowly there. The warming Arctic has already disrupted the polar vortex winds, resulting in the frigid air masses that came as far south as here in Georgia last winter. Warmer water is less dense and therefore sinks to depth more slowly. This slowing allows more rainfall to accumulate in the salty surface waters, also making it less dense, further slowing the sinking and forming an AMOC feedback loop.

 

Day of the Whale, 46th of Spring, 526 M.E. (Electra): I heard the other day that child psychologists propose that children first develop a sense of self identity by watching their parents. They see their parents looking at something in the room, and come to understand that their parents are considering that thing. It could be the other parent, or some other person in the room, or the pet, or a piece of furniture, or, more and more often these days, a phone. 

At some point, they see the parent looking at them, and a mental model emerges that not only are they the thing the parent is looking at, and by extension, that they are a "thing." This preverbal realization that they are one of the things in the room, a potential subject of Mom or Dad's attention, is the start of a sense of identity, and of ego, self, and separateness.

I cannot confirm that, not having raised a child from infancy myself. But I know my cat, Eliot, has made a lifelong project of studying me, as his feeding and very survival depend on me. He's created a conceptual model of me in his mind, I believe, and understands that I perceive the world mostly through my eyes, and that the locus of my perception is in my face. When he's trying to interact with me, he's up in my face, trying to put himself into my field of vision. He can tell or assumes that I'm not paying attention to him when my eyes are trained on the television, or the computer, or a book, or more and more often these days, a phone.

But when I look directly at him, he knows that he's got my attention. I can tell this because I can elicit a "meow" from him simply by turning my head and staring at him. "Meow," might be cat-speak for "yes, I'm right here" or "whatcha looking at, motherfucker?," but in any case, he knows it's him I'm looking at.

And if he knows it's "him," he most likely has some concept of himself as a "thing," a living entity separate from all other living entities. He must have some level of awareness of something like an ego-self. I think this must be true of all social animals that rely on interacting with other members of their own or other species to survive.

To be sure, his self identity is very different than mine. While he knows that he is a separate and distinct entity from me, or from his late brother, Izzy, for that matter, and while he certainly has memory, I don't think he has a sense of a narrative biography. I don't think he recounts a tale of once being a feral cat at large in an urban neighborhood, and then being taken in at one particular house. Or of having a "brother" (actually, another stray that got taken in) and then losing that brother to old age and death. Without language, such narratives are difficult to create and maintain. When we visit the vet, he's familiar with the surroundings and isn't surprised by the activities, so obviously he remembers past visits, but I don't believe he thinks back to the last time we were there, or anticipates the next time we return.

Thomas Nagel asked "what's it like to be a bat?" If it's "like" something, then that something must have subjective experience and is therefore conscious. It's had to imagine what being a bat is like, but for many years now, I've been studying what it's like to be a cat, and one thing I've learned it that part of what that's like is wondering what it's like to be a human.

 

Day of the Sparrow, 45th of Spring, 526 M.E. (Deneb): I'm nearing the end of Michael Pollen's A Mind Emerges - I'm reading it slowly to let each chapter fully sink in before moving on.

I loved that in the Introduction, Pollen recounted the recent history (if that's not an oxymoron) of cognitive science, recounting the work of the philosophers and neuroscientists that had informed my understanding of consciousness - David Chalmers, Thomas Nagel, and Giulio Tononi. 

I love the book - I give it five stars and two thumbs up. But a lot of the "latest" ideas Pollan discusses, the 2026 post-Chalmers, post-Nagel, post-Tononi thinking, sounded familiar to me and I realized how lucky I was 10 years ago to have listened to the Zen Brain series of talks recorded at Roshi Joan Halifax' Upaya Zen Center in 2012 and 2014. The twelve-part Zen Brain: Emotions, Equanimity, and the Embodied Mind series from 2012 and the twelve-part Zen Brain: Consciousness, Complex Systems, and Transformation from 2014 not only neatly fill the gap between Chalmers et al and the conversations Pollan had over the past few years, but also present several other thoughts and concepts from both a scientific and Zen Buddhist perspective. 

The Zen Brain speakers - neuroscientists, philosophers, Buddhist scholars, and Zen teachers - explore how cognitive science looks at the mind as grounded in the complex transformative processes of life, and how neuroscience sees the brain as a complex adaptive system that constantly reshapes itself in response to context, experience, and practice. The conversations focus on the themes of embodied cognition, emergent processes, and enaction - cognition as embodied action. 

The talks are recorded quite clearly and can be found by following the links above, or digging through the archive on the Upaya Zen Center website, or even accessed through the Apple podcast app. I highly recommend them.

I walked an 8.5-mile van Buren today, re-listening to the first three episodes of the 2014 series through headphones. A lovely way to spend a mid-April afternoon in Georgia.

Day of the Lemur, 44th of Spring, 526 M.E. (Castor): Yesterday, it was revealed that the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is at least partially funded by a foreign government working closely with Vladimir Putin. In a speech, Péter Magyar, the man elected to replace Viktor Orbán as President of Hungary, revealed that Orbán had been using Hungarian government funds to finance CPAC. Orbán had clearly been working for the benefit of Russia’s president Vladimir Putin, and just days before the election, news broke that last October, Orbán told Putin, “In any matter where I can be of assistance, I am at your service.”

CPAC had celebrated Orbán’s efforts to destroy the liberal democracy of Europe in order to replace it with what he called “illiberal" or “Christian" democracy. He replaced the multiculturalism at the heart of democracy with Christian culture, stopped the immigration that he believed undermined Hungarian culture, and rejected “adaptable family models” in favor of “the Christian family model.”

Sound familiar? CPAC has been spouting Putin's propaganda for some 25 years now. 

But you know what? I don't even care. The world's climate is crumbling and an insane, megalomaniacal narcissist is fumbling around in the Middle East, the most volatile area on Earth, in the most reckless way possible. Worsening heat waves are supercharging hurricanes, and Typhoon Sinlaku has intensified in the last 24 hours to a Category 5 storm with 180-mph winds. Gray whales are dying in San Francisco Bay at an alarming rate, and Greenland's nearshore fisheries are collapsing. At this point, I'm pretty sure my body's already heavily contaminated from microplastics, PFAS, and pesticides. Scarcity of water will become the next global crisis, and already is in many parts of the world, and will further exacerbate global migration, inflaming the already present intolerance and economic inequality. So if 75 million morons think the world would be a better place if all families resembled a 1950's television sitcom (e.g., Father Knows Best), that's the least of my concerns.

It's hard to feel compassion or loving kindness for a nation that willfully gets on board a clown car heading off a cliff while loudly proclaiming that their god is telling them to floor the gas pedal.

 

Day of the Boar, 43rd of Spring, 526 M.E. (Betelgeuse): Climate models indicate a strong likelihood (around 62%) that El Niño conditions will develop this year, with a significant chance of intensifying into a rare “super” El Niño event. Such events, defined by sea surface temperature anomalies exceeding ~2°C in the central and eastern Pacific, have historically driven severe climate disruptions.

A strong El Niño can shift atmospheric circulation, intensifying extreme weather and causing severe drought and heat across Australia, and parts of Africa, India, and the Amazon. Extreme rainfall and  increased flood risk may occur here in the southern U.S. and in parts of Asia.

Already, a dangerous super typhoon has formed in the Pacific and is expected to make landfall on Tuesday in the Northern Mariana Islands, bringing destructive winds, widespread heavy rain, and flooding. The tropical typhoon was producing sustained winds of 173 mph today. While it is expected to weaken slightly over the next few days, the storm will probably cross the islands as a category 4 or 5 typhoon.

Although no hurricanes made landfall in the U.S. last year, the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season was distinguished by three Category 5 hurricanes - the second-highest total since 2005. And that was without El Niño conditions.

I have a feeling this is going to be a very interesting summer.

 

Into Another, 42nd Day of Spring, 526 M.E. (Aldebaran): The Stable Genius' approval ratings dropped below 40% this week as gas prices climbed to a national average of more than $4 a gallon. A Pew Research poll conducted in mid-March found that 60 percent of Americans disapproved of his handling of Iran, including 30 percent of Republicans. His approval rating on the economy has also reached a new low of 31 percent, a drop of eight percentage points in only two months, according to a CNN poll from late March.   

The cracks in the Empire's wall are slowly widening. Today, the far-right Hungarian president Victor Orban was defeated in his re-election bid. John Brennan, the former head of the CIA, has joined the calls for removing the Stable Genius from office under the 25th amendment, saying it "was written with him in mind." Last month, some eight million people, or 2.4% of the U.S. population, participated in the No Kings protests. The Supreme Court appears skeptical of the Stable Genius' argument against citizenship for persons born on American soil. MAGA podcasters and influencers are leaving the fold over the Stable Genius' erratic and nonsensical policies.

We have a long, long, long way to go to heal this nation, and none of these news bits in themselves are the cure, but we can't build a new society until the rotten facade of the fascist regime in place now is obliterated.

Blows against the Empire.

 

The Dull Gleam Monody, 41st Day of Spring, 526 M.E. (Helios): In an interview with the NY Times' Ezra Klein, American journalist, political commentator, and author Fareed Zakaria offered his evaluation of the Stable Genius' unauthorized and immoral war with Iran.

He points out that when the war began, Iran's nuclear facilities had already been “completely and totally obliterated,” at least according to the Stable Genius. While one should never takes the SG at his word, the Israel Atomic Energy Commission also confirmed that Iran’s nuclear program has been destroyed and couldn't be restarted as long as they didn’t get access to nuclear materials, which were being denied to them. That was the situation at the start of the war. 

After the U.S and Israel's bombing was over, Iran had lost its military and its navy, but by the end of the hostilities, it had gained is a far more effective weapon than nuclear arms: it had realized and shown the world that it can destroy the global economy by simply blocking the Strait of Hormuz. Iran now seems poised to not only hold much of the world hostage with its strategic hold on the Strait, but it’s also going to monetize that stranglehold, gaining $70 to $90 billion of revenue every year, about twice as much as it made selling oil. Those payments will be felt by Americans at the gas pump, and also weakens the American petrodollar because payments for passage through the Strait are being made in crypto or in yuan, the Chinese currency.

Iran has also strengthened Putin because Russian is now making something on the order of $4 billion to $5 billion more per month because of the increased price of oil, which will probably stay elevated for a while.

In addition, it has also nearly destroyed the Western alliance. A frustrated and desperate Stable Genius, when he realized he wasn’t getting his way, decided to blame his failures on America’s European allies, as if had they somehow joined in, it would have made any difference. As Zakaria points out, when you have a bad strategy with unclear and shifting goals, it doesn’t really matter how many people you have cheering you on from the sidelines.

The benefits to the U.S. of the war are close to zero. Zakaria sees the war as merely a willful, reckless destruction of lives, of massive amounts of American military hardware, and of America’s global reputation.

It was a stupid, lousy strategy that has ended up with the United States much weaker than it was before, he concludes.

 

The Spirals of Elsewhere, 40th Day of Spring, 526 M.E. (Electra): To put an end to greed, Zen Master Dogen advised, we have to depart from the egocentric self. In order to depart from the egocentric self, we need to realize the impermanence of all things. 

To depart from the egocentric self is to abandon ego-attachment, the assumption that there is a separate self that exists in the body or mind, and thinking it to be substantial and eternal. This is a fundamental delusion, Dogen advised. 

To practice egolessness and see the impermanence of all existence is to live without the greedy desires that seek fame and profit.

Greed is an extreme form of desire, and the Buddha's primary teaching is that suffering arises from our desires. Hence, it makes sense that greed - extreme desire - will give rise to extreme suffering. Putting an end to greed by recognizing the impermanence of all things, including the egocentric self, obviously puts an end to suffering.  

When I look at the Stable Genius, I see a man consumed with greed, with  an undying lust for more money, more gold, more power, more attention. I see a man suffering and suffering greatly, and his pain is eating his bloated body and destroying his mind, causing him to fly into fits of rage and anger with vows of retribution and revenge. He's starting wars, both cultural and social, as well as actual wars, invasions of other countries. 

The "man who has everything" and can't seem to get enough of anything. 

I'd feel sorry for him and I might on some level, but his greed, hate, and delusion are destroying this country in which I live and the whole world at large. I don't see the Stable Genius departing from egocentric self or recognizing the impermanence of all things in his lifetime, so the happiest outcome for him is probably for his lifetime to end. All that suffering, for him and the world, will be over. An end to his existence is the kindest thing I can wish upon the Stable Genius.      

 

Seething Center, 39th Day of Spring, 526 M.E. (Deneb): "If I can guide my thoughts to recognize there is no essence of me,  that my self is the unfolding of perceptions and that they're constantly changing," British neuroscientist Anil Seth told Michael Pollan, "I think it reduces the existential pain of illness, at least a little bit." 

When we are suffering, Pollan concludes, the impermanence of the self can be a comfort. 

Zen Master Dogen would not have disagreed. The primary point, he states in Zuimonki, is to separate from your ego. To do so, he taught, you have to consider impermanence. "Our life is like a dream," he says. "Time passes swiftly. Our dew-like life easily disappears." Since time waits for no one, we should try to do good for others as long as we are alive and not worry about our own selves or our reputation.   

I'm three-quarters of the way through Pollan's A World Arises. If this book doesn't end with him becoming a full-fledged Buddhist, he's missed the truth right in front of his eyes.

 

The Long Dim Under, 38th Day of Spring, 526 M.E. (Castor): I didn't die last night in a global thermonuclear war and I bet you didn't either. We can be grateful for that much at least.

Shortly after completing yesterday's post, I saw the news online, Stable Genius Announces Two-Week Ceasefire in Iran. Of course he did. TACO. It was all just more bluster and bravado.

But the bluster and bravado were literally terroristic threats to "wipe out" an entire civilization, "never to return." "Bomb them back to the stone ages." Irresponsible and reckless rhetoric from the so-called leader of the so-called free world, the man with the nuclear launch codes at his bruised and short fingertips.

Is the crisis over? No. Israel's already resumed bombing Lebanon, because that's what they do, and Iran is still throttling traffic in the Strait of Hormuz. But most significantly, a mentally incompetent, narcissistic despot is still in the Oval Office, and the world won't be able to even start working our way back toward anything even resembling normalcy until he's, well, no longer breathing. That's not a threat. It's just an observation that peace is apparently incompatible  with his existence.

The same regime still controls Iran, except now they're both more hardline, and, oh, we just killed their father, brothers and sisters, cousins, nieces and nephews. They still have enriched uranium, but now more motivation that ever to develop a bomb. The flow of some 20% of the world's oil is still under their control. And we're alienated our allies, gave Russia a financial lifeline, and emboldened China to seize territory they see fit to take.

And don't even get me started on climate change, the gutting of environmental safeguards, economic inequality, and making racism acceptable again.

I'm not happy withthis world and things are only going to get worse.            

 

The Quiet Turf, 37th Day of Spring, 526 M.E. (Betelgeuse): Not to sound overdramatic, but I am traumatized by recent news. A madman, a person truly unwell mentally, has his finger on the nuclear button and is loudly proclaiming his intention to use it. At 8:00 pm tonight.

I've seen this movie. It doesn't end well. 

I'm a boomer who literally had to do the duck-and-cover drills beneath my desk to defend against a nuclear attack. I remember neighbors building fallout shelters in their backyards, and my teachers made sure that we children knew where the school's shelter was and how to get there. 

I was eight years old during the Cuban missile crisis although I didn't really understand the situation at the time. But as my young mind tried to grasp the adult world of current affairs and the grim tones used during the evening news, it began to dawn on me that a thermonuclear war was the most likely demise not only of myself, but the whole rest of the world as well. 

I watched and was terrified by movies like Seven Days in May, Fail Safe, and Dr. Strangelove. Post-nuclear dystopias were a cliche in my comic books and monster movies. And then there were those weird gore-porn agitprop movies we were forced to watch at school for some reason that graphically imagined what life would be like after a nuclear attack. 

Basically, I realized at an early age that I would most likely either be instantly vaporized in a nuclear blast (if I were lucky), or painfully burn to death if I was a little further from ground zero at the time of impact, or (worst of all) survive the attack only to succumb to radiation sickness from the fallout, or starvation, or post-apocalyptic violence. 

All this before I was even 12. I basically lived with that low-level existential dread all through high school and college, and as the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. lurched from one crisis to the next, world politics resembled that last scene in Reservoir Dogs where everyone's pointing guns at every one else, barking warnings and orders until one gun finally fires and then everyone starts shooting.

Then, a miracle apparently happened. In 1989, the Berlin Wall came down, the U.S.S.R., our existential enemy, dissolved, and suddenly, it seemed like maybe global nuclear annihilation wasn't so inevitable after all. 

Oh, we were so naive beck in the 1990s. Yes, the U.S.S.R. was gone, but it didn't take long for new threats to emerge and new wars started, and while politics might have been less tense than at the height of the Cold War, the nuclear option wasn't off the table.

Now, the Stable Genius, an increasingly unhinged and erratic person, is vowing that he will completely destroy the nation of Iran unless they concede to all of his demands by 8:00 pm today, something they seem unwilling and unlikely to do. He hasn't used the word "nuclear," but his threats of wiping out a "whole civilization" with force "unlike anything ever seen before" more than hints at nuclear weaponry. 

He wanted to use nukes on North Korea during his first term, but he had guardrails around him back then to dissuade him. Hell, he even talked about nuking a hurricane back then. The guardrails are not only gone now, but his black-out drunk Secretary of Defense, a former Fox & Friends weekend host, clearly sees the Iranian conflict in Biblical terms, and I'm sure he's leafing through the Book of Revelations looking for clues to convince himself that he's fulfilling some sort of prophesy. 

The Stable Genius is clearly unwell mentally, he's surrounded himself with crackpots, sycophants, and maniacs, and he has the authority to call for the nuclear annihilation of anther country if it so pleases him.

If he does "go nuclear," I doubt it will immediately trigger a global apocalypse a la World War III, with Russia, the U.S., and China all firing ICBMs at each other. But it would still be catastrophic, politically, strategically, and ecologically. Once the seal is broken and nukes, even so-called "tactical nuclear weapons," are used in combat, no nation could be sure any longer that the U.S. or any other nation won't go nuclear again, and will act accordingly in the interest of their own self preservation. Russia will use a nuke in Ukraine, China in Taiwan, and North Korea any random place just to show they're capable, too.  

In many ways, that would be worse that the WWIII scenario. Remember the three ways I imagined I would die - either instantly vaporized at ground zero, painfully burn to death, or (worst of all) radiation sickness, starvation, or mass violence? The Stable Genius is putting us on course for option three.

Even if nothing happens, we still have nearly three more years of this madness to look forward too. If he chooses not to nuke Iran, will he restrain himself during the next crisis? Will he go nuclear over Greenland and attack Denmark? Or NATO? Are Chicago and San Francisco exempt from his anger?

A malignant narcissist with a messianic complex, the attention span of a toddler, and no self-control has the launch codes, and all we can do is watch the news and hope for the least bad outcome. 

I always knew this would eventually happen.

 

Day of the Tower, 36th of Spring, 526 M.E. (Aldebaran): They're so stupid, they're so unbelievably fucking stupid, they believe they can make the American people forget that the undeclared war in Iran was not legally authorized by Congress, has little popular support, and is costing $1B a day, by spinning some sort of Saving Private Ryan story about the rescue of two downed airmen, without mentioning they they're the ones who put the airmen in harm's way in the first place.

The black-out drunk Secretary of Defense even made a religious analogy, pointing out the airmen were shot down on Good Friday, were missing in action of Saturday, and then resurrected (under his direction) on Easter Sunday.

I'm glad the airmen were rescued, not only because of human lives but also because the situation would have become immeasurably worse if they had been captured. The story is not about the skillful rescue of a couple brave pilots, it's about international war crimes, it's about the lawless and reckless actions of a senile, demented president, it's about the colossal waste of money and staggering carbon footprint of an obscene and illegal war.

The real story is what led to the surprise and unannounced decision to initiate the bombing. Distraction from the most recent and disturbingly lurid revelations in the Epstein files? Ask yourself who profits the most by this action. Israel and Saudi Arabia were Iran's biggest rivals in the region, and Bibi Netanyahu has long had the Stable Genius wrapped around his finger, and the U.S.'s chief negotiator prior to the bombing, Jared Kushner, has received a $2B business "loan" from the Saudis. And Russia is probably the biggest beneficiary of the war, as the sanctions against their oil exports have been lifted to partially offset the restricted flow through the Persian Gulf, renewing Russia's ability to finance their reprehensible war in Ukraine. One would almost suspect that the Stable Genius authorized the bombing to please Bibi, MBS, and Putin. Distraction from the Epstein files was just a side benefit.      

But let's not talk about that. Remember Saving Private Ryan?

 

Cryptic Tailgate of the Mourners, 35th Day of Spring, 526 M.E. (Helios):  Easter. The son has died and now the father can be born. 

All the right-wing pundits and agitators who keep screaming about an alleged "War on Christmas" don't seem to imagine a war on Easter, although from what I see, Easter is much less celebrated than Christmas, even though it seems like it's the more foundational Christian holiday. Virgin-birth mythology aside, the extraordinary thing about Jesus wasn't his birth but his supposed resurrection, but they seem willing to let observation of the latter slide while getting quite defensive if you're not as enthusiastic about the former as they deem appropriate. The cynic in me wonders if the reason isn't theological but monetary - it's harder to capitalize on Easter than Christmas.

As a child, Christmas was the greatest holiday of the year. My parents generously lavished their children with gifts and it was our major annual acquisition event. Christmas was when we got the toys to last us for the next year and clothes for the rest of the winter and hopefully the spring. Our material status rose or fell based on our haul on Christmas morning.  

Easter, on the other hand, had candy, which was cool, but it also had hard-boiled eggs which were kind of gross, and it also meant dressing up in uncomfortable clothes and sitting through a particularly crowded and stuffy church service. It also meant a blood-sugar crash sometime later in the day, and a realization that jelly beans and Peeps were our least favorite candies. Confection-wise, Easter couldn't hold a candle to Halloween.

Christmas smelled like evergreens and pies. Easter smelled like the vinegar used to dye the eggs. Also, pictures at Sears with the Easter Bunny were far more terrifying than pictures with Santa. 

Christmas was joyous and celebratory. Easter was something to be endured.

 

The Remnants of Bela, 34th Day of Spring, 526 M.E. (Electra): We're in the in-between season here in Atlanta. In between heating and air conditioning. It's warm enough to not need the heat, but cool enough not to crank up the AC. Warm enough to peel the comforter and heavy blanket off the bed, too cool to sleep under just a sheet.

Without the heat or AC running, the air in the house in still and calm. When I light a stick of incense during meditation, the smoke trails straight up toward the ceiling in a solid gray column. No dispersion, no chaotic eddies of curling smoke. A single straight column, like smoke from a campfire in the deep forest in a Maxfield Parrish painting. It's a beautiful sight, although looking at it after meditating, the calm mind is more inclined than usual to find beauty in the mundane and simple. 

As I slowly walk around the room between sitting periods, my motion disturbs the air and the smoke sinuously bends and snakes. I can even see it respond as I slowly approach and the mass of my body bulldozes the air in front of me. When I'm very close, the smoke is as chaotic and eddified as when the heat or AC is running. I don't see the column as I walk away as it's now behind me, but when I turn a corner, I notice it's returning to the straight gray column of before.

There's no metaphor here, no lesson to be learned. It is what it is. The weather's pleasantly mild, smoke rises, your humble narrator observes and finds joy in the simple physics. 

The end.

 

Day of Sargasso, 33rd of Spring, 526 M.E. (Deneb): We're in another inscrutable and senseless war for some reason of another, the economy's gone to shit, no one believes there will be free and fair elections this November, the climate's gone haywire, and, not unrelated, the most incompetent, irresponsible, and inappropriate people imaginable are running the government, but whitey's back on the moon.

Day of Kalimantan, 32nd of Spring, 526 M.E. (Castor): I have two minds. I only have one brain (of course), but at least two minds exist within that brain. Maybe more.

When I sit in meditation, thoughts naturally arise. I don't try to control them or direct them, nor do I try to stop or stifle them. I just observe them and let them wander freely as I observe.

But if I'm observing my thoughts, then my thoughts aren't me. Who's thinking those thoughts and who's observing them? And as you might guess, as I realize that there's a separate observer, I realize that there's also a mind that's observing the observer that's observing the thoughts. But I've never been able to hold all three in my mind at the same time: the thinker, the observer, and the observer of the observer. Once I become aware of the observer of the observer, the original thoughts seem to vanish as if into thin air. I can't tell if its like a hall of mirrors with an infinite number of reflections of reflections, or if I'm just switching back and forth between dual states - the observer and the observed. 

First there's the original thinker, the observer of thoughts. Then there's the observer of the observer. Is the observer of the observer of the observer the original thinker again, or some third state of mind? Is there an infinite progression of observers, or is it a cycle, or is it like a magnet switching between two polarities?

I don't know.

Today, the Stable Genius fired his Attorney General, the dishonest and duplicitous Pam Bondi. Last month, he fired his Secretary of Homeland Security, the puppy killer Kristi Noem. Bondi and Noem, while contemptible, or no worse than their replacements, Todd Blanche and Markwayne Mullen, or our black-out drunk Secretary of Defense or our grifting Director of the FBI. Why is it the Stable Genius only fires the women in his administration? 

I don't know.